The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • The Scots are voting, not revolting

    The Scots are voting, not revolting

    (New trends in nation formation)

    Almost five hundred years after the Treaty of Westphalia, the nation-state paradigm continues to fascinate as a major work in progress. No one is sure of how it will end, or which strange turn it will take in even the most developed centres of the globe. Like the novel genre which consecrated its arrival, its obituary has been announced several times only for it to arrive as a ghostly guest at its own funeral. So till date, the nation-state remains the dominant instrument for mapping territorial space.

    Like the famous owl of Minerva which often begins its journey after the events, the nation often begins its real journey after the pundits have exhausted themselves. Most times, it is better for people to vote than to revolt. Elections, when and where free and fair, remain the most potent weapon for arbitrating and modulating the destiny of the nation.

    Sometimes, a single election assumes the status of a national or regional referendum. As it has been noted, people fight and die for a cause only to discover that what they have fought for is not what they have achieved. Since human existence is luckily finite, it is then left for others to pick up the gauntlet. Elections often play a sick joke on humanity in the process of guiding their affairs.

    Last week as the good people of Ondo state in Nigeria marginally voted for a continuation of the status quo or a version of sub-regional self-determination, a more historic referendum loomed large in the near distance and became an almost inevitable reality rather than an elusive mirage. British Prime minister, David Cameron and Scotland’s pro-independence first minister, Alex Salmond, meeting in Edinburgh finally agreed to a referendum to determine the 400 year union between England and Scotland. It must take place by 2014. Is this end of the first truly modern nation-state, or the end of the beginning as Winston Churchill, the most famous Englishman of all time will put it?

    Within the context of what is known as la longue dure or the long arch of history, it is possible to view the Ondo election as a botched or bungled referendum which will return to haunt. It is also possible that what we are witnessing is the rise of sub-ethnic nationalism or the most dramatic instance of the segmentation of elite consciousness within the old region. If the issues raised are not immediately addressed, they will make regional integration a forlorn dream, a fatal dagger in the heart of the thematisation of national narrative in terms of regional aspiration.

    In its most depressing possibility, it may well be that by the time the Ondo conundrum is resolved, another political warlord would have struck from another direction in the old region, further politically dispersing the tribe. We may yet have military rule to thank for this Balkanisation of regional consciousness. With the benefit of hindsight, it may well be the military’s most enduring contribution to nation-building.

    But if on the other hand, a greater national emergency were to intervene in the nearest future, the old regional consciousness will reassert its superiority and supremacy in a new form irrespective of local opposition. It is hard to imagine a more impossible taskmaster than the nation-state paradigm and its tortuous and mind bending history.

    Be that as it may, the global import of the impending referendum in Britain whittles into utter insignificance a mere election in a remote state of a former British colony. You cannot give what you don’t have. The British model of nation-formation is put to severe test by developments in their own backyard. The sorcerer’s apprentice cannot be wiser than the sorcerer.

    As it was the case in their own nation, the manual is to forcibly weld the nation of different nationalities through the violent instrumentality of a master-nationality around which the new nation must congeal and coalesce by blood, sweat and tears. This model has come to grief in the old India, in Sudan, in Southern Africa and elsewhere after much strife and bloodshed. After being exported abroad, the virus has now returned to the original carrier. It is the turn of the English patient.

    But we must thank god for small mercies. The impending referendum explodes several myths of the nation which Nigerian authorities and Nigerians must do well to study and monitor closely. First, it is always better to allow the diverse people of a territorial space to determine the best and most creative form of cohabitation rather than hold them together and sometimes against their wish like inmates of a colonial garrison or a mental asylum.

    Second, no nation is ever divinely ordained or handed down from heaven. This is a stupid myth. Finally, the forcible union of disparate groups in a nation-space is not an irreversible or immutable arrangement like the Catholic marriage which is not subject to dissolution and/or annulment. Nations being human constructs are subject to human amendments when and if the form violates the contents. You cannot force a grown up man into the trousers of a toddler.

    Yet there are profound ironies and a play of signifiers across rigid binary divisions about the impending referendum which ought to be of interest to us in Nigeria. It is quite curious and intriguing that it has always been Conservative governments that are in the forefront of championing Devolution in Britain rather than the more radical and reform-oriented Labour Party. In 1993, John Major had declared that the nation would not decline were the majority of the people in Northern Island to vote to join the Republic of Ireland.

    The point is that with its roots in Fabian Socialism and its consciousness steeped and forged in an indivisible proletarian consciousness and pan-Britain confraternity of the socially aggrieved, Labour Party would always view separatist movements through the prism of suspicion and unease. Old statist Bolsheviks with their command economy and command politics are still very much alive. In any case, the separation of Scotland from England would rob Labour of substantial electoral fortunes. The socialist vision resonates more with the underdog..

    But it is also possible that after centuries of cohabitation, the Scots have come to love and appreciate the immense economic advantages and the political homogeneity that a bigger British identity confers over the shrivelled possibilities of separatist laagers. In the end, material wellbeing often trumps cultural and ethnic grandstanding.

    In a revealing survey, it was shown that if the referendum were to be conducted at this moment, the majority vote would go for the retention of the old union. When disparate entities are forced together over a long period, they tend to develop certain overarching commonalities. This should warm the heart of Nigeria’s old military nationalists and one-nation panjandrums.

    What should even intrigue concerned Nigerians the more is the fact that the prospective Scottish nation will have the Queen of England as its titular head just as it has been the case in Australia and Canada. It will remain in NATO and retain the pound sterling as an ancillary buffer to pressures from the Euro-zone. It is certainly going to be a strange new-type nation and one whose creative nuances should be of interest to those interested in a reinvention of the outmoded and superannuated model of colonial nationhood foisted on Nigerians..

    For the proud, thrifty and tough Scottish people, it may very well be the beginning of the end of a historical nightmare lasting several centuries. The conquest and suppression of the Scots was done with the savagery and brutality that befitted tribes slowly emerging from the Dark Age. There were epic cruelties on both sides. For several decades, the gore remained on the Scottish highlands for all to see.

    Deprived of their own empire, the doughty Scots turned inward, to their inner resilience, resources and to the inner empire. They emerged as great builders, statesmen, politicians, great writers, soldiers, scientists, philosophers and intellectuals without which the British Empire would have been impossible. To a large extent, they became model citizens.

    But the historic hurt and humiliation remain. Apart from their traditional single malt whiskey, nothing warms the Scottish heart more than when ventilating about the past heroes of the land, particularly Wallace the Braveheart, a man of spectacular bravery and heroism who was subjected to horrendous torture before being crudely dismembered. Yet a recent film about this iconic Scot was dismissed as ninety percent inaccuracies and ten percent lies.

    As a conquered race, the Scots could do with such cosmic self-inflation. There is enough evidence to suggest that the early Scots were cast as primitive and uncivilised people by the victorious English.. For example, the great English man of letters, Samuel Johnson, a.k.a the Dean, subjected his faithful Scottish companion, amanuensis and intellectual confidante to scathing racist taunts based on his country of origins. At some point, Johnson solemnly informed Boswell that wild oats which was the staple diet among the Scots was fed to animals in England.

    Yet it was not always a tale of woes. The Scots were allowed to pursue their own way of life and to pursue life in accordance with their culture, particularly in the areas of education, economy and religion. All that is solid often melts into thin air indeed. In a play of profound ironies, it is even rumoured that the famous Scottish kilt, the equivalent of a national attire, was actually the invention of an English nobleman. Snooper congratulates the good people of Britain on this impending referendum. We recommend the model to all nations in distress.

  • Nigeria: if constitutional amendment is for political and economic sustainability…

    If the  current effort at constitutional amendment achieves nothing more, it must, at least,  legislate for fiscal federalism

    First and foremost, it is a misnomer, a thoroughly unfortunate one at that, that for a country the size and strategic importance of Nigeria, it comes down to an assembly of some men and women with various shades of electoral legitimacy, and credibility, that will have to fashion out its grundnorm, one on which resides its very continued existence as an aspiring sovereign nation. For ease of reference, let me bring in , mutatis mutandis, the views of elder statesman, Ahmed Joda, in his STATE OF THE NIGERIAN NATION article. He wrote: ‘Both the Executive and the Legislative branches of our Government maintain that Nigeria is a Sovereign Nation governed by an elected President and bicameral legislature in whose hands all decisions lie and who, therefore are the bodies entrusted by the people to take all decisions including those affecting their existence and their fate. While that may be the legalistic position, there are issues of credibility, and therefore, moral recognition and acceptability, to contend with. What many Nigerians say is that the elections that brought these people into office were not credible? The court verdicts, that maintain them there are equally questionable’.

    Unfortunately, since members of the National Assembly never fight one another on issues that are mutually, financially beneficial, they have taken upon themselves a task which ideally should have gone to a Constituent Assembly, with a full mandate to comprehensively review the Nigerian Constitution. Too bad but that exactly is where we are today and it would appear that the Joint Committee of the two chambers has already commenced work and, as confirmed in a newspaper interview by Ike Ekweremadu, Chairman of the appropriate Senate Committee they already held a retreat in April, a public hearing in October with another slated for November.

    How Nigerians hope every business before the National Assembly will be held as expeditiously as this!

    Having then had the National Assembly inflict itself on Nigerians so egregiously, how does the country emerge a much better polity, constitutionally, politically and economically, post the exercise? To date, nothing suggests we will. And in this viewpoint , I have respectable, and highly knowledgeable voices in my support, one being that of my colleague-columnist on this newspaper, Professor Ropo Sekoni who, only on Sunday, 14 October, 2012, concluded a 4-part series on ‘Revisiting Our Unification Policies’.

    Sekoni’s well-argued thesis is that most of the policies handed down by military regimes, and which subsist till today like centralized police force, unity schools, National Youth Service Corps to mention a few, have become totally anachronistic with no evidence as to their usefulness or desirability except, as in cases like the National Youth Service, where some people are simply desirous of having annual cheap labour.

    He went further to demonstrate that given the expressed views of both the Presidency and the National Assembly, Nigerians have no basis to expect fundamental changes, amendment or not. For instance both entities have said it, loud and clear, that any attempt to change these military diktats will be tantamount to destroying Nigerian unity; a unity that at best remains a chimera and continues to validate Awo’s half a century old seminal conclusion that Nigeria is, at best, a geographical expression. We have also heard in this country, views to the effect that a call for a people’s constitution is nothing but a vote of no confidence in the country, as if hegemony is an antidote to a break up. The president, without a shred of empirical evidence, has told us all that State Police is an anathema even when he now routinely contracts out what essentially is police and naval duties to, hopefully successfully, redeemed militants like ‘General’ Tompolo. It is also on this basis that many have equated Regional Economic Integration to the junior brother of secession whereas those preaching and working hard at it have the very opposite objective in mind. Behind all these insinuations, however, is the desire to continue to live and loom large on the largesse from the Niger-Delta even when all areas of this country are richly blessed. This is why our oil boom has increasingly turned an oil doom with some individuals, among them children of the political high and mighty, fraudulently fleecing the country of billions of naira without batting an eyelid.

    What then should be the focus of the National Assembly if it truly intends to make the country a better place for its citizenry? Put differently what are the critical challenges facing Nigeria today and standing between it and the attainment of a genuine nationhood?

    I am engrossed with a good part of the admonitions of IFEANYI Udibe, PhD, on the subject under consideration. According to him, in today’s Nigeria, there is no responsible leadership able to purposefully manage its democratic processes or to effectively handle its continually disenchanted ethnic groupings. Nothing, in his view, propels Nigerians towards real patriotic actions, like being ready to die to defend a worthy national belief system and superstructure, or to redeem the man-made worthlessness or the all – pervading poverty in spite of the numerous poverty alleviation programmes funded with huge international funds and its equally stupendous internally budgeted counterpart. There is no leadership prepared to transcend posturing and ethnic bigotry to propel Nigeria towards practical realization of the 2020 – 20 Vision being driven largely by propagandists who end up receiving National Merit Awards for doing nothing. Office holders, he says, should understand that political catastrophe when unleashed, consumes both the helpless and the untouchable, even those who attempt to play God. Nigeria, he says, has come to that level where opposing forces must either generate a political catastrophe or honest dialogue, concluding that those who sow seeds of discord will reap violence, even death. And the survivors, he concluded, will rebuild’.

    I have quoted Udibe at length to forcefully show to the National Assembly members what awaits each and every one of them unless they take the present exercise, unlike the one muddled through by then President Obasanjo, as a call to patriotic duty; an exercise whose outcome can either guarantee Nigeria’s sustainability as an emerging world power or one that can , quite easily, incinerate it with the hopes and aspirations of millions yet unborn as well as those of Nigeria’s friends, spread far and wide who continue to invest a quantum of hope and optimism in its resurgence.

    Since space constraint will not permit my listing what issues should have the attention of the Committee, it is pertinent to suggest that devolution of power from the federal government must be key. Whereas in the First Republic only about 22 items were on the exclusive legislative list, today, they are not less than 66 leaving the states almost completely comatose in many areas. As things stand today, no state or group of states can better the lot of its citizenry or attempt to improve its economy by unilaterally building new railway lines even when that would have been exceedingly impactful. The federal government continues to fight turf wars with states even on agriculture.

    If the current effort at constitutional amendment achieves nothing more, it must, at least, legislate for fiscal federalism and ensure that the federal government no longer has a stranglehold on the federating units. To achieve that, the federal government responsibility should be limited to: Defence, External Affairs, Immigration, Customs and Excise, Central banking and Aviation. Responsibility for creating, and administering Local governments, subsisting, as they do, in states where the constitution specifically prescribes the election of, and rule by state governors as the overall suzerain, should inhere, unhindered, in states. The federal government, in our emerging constitution which Nigerians hope will enhance federalism, should be seen as nothing less than a busy body, if it attempts to ram anything down the throat of state governments as far as the administration of Local governments, their creation and sustenance, is concerned.

  • Ondo election: A post-mortem

    Ondo election: A post-mortem

    Chief Olu Falae, Afenifere big wigs, Pastor Tunde Bakare, Mr Yinka Odumakin and key members of the Awolowo family have joyfully and spontaneously congratulated Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State on his victory in last week’s governorship election. There is of course nothing wrong with that, for these eminent Yoruba sons and daughters are entitled to support anyone they like and, whether the victory in question is tainted or not, congratulate whomsoever they wish. I support their right to do whatever the law vouchsafes to every citizen. However, they also added, both before the election and after, that Mimiko’s victory would trigger the rejigging of Southwest politics to the extent of precipitating the extinction of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), a progressive political party now dominant in the region. But they offer no replacement. They also added that ACN’s progressive identity was spurious, and that even if the party had any progressive credential, it was definitely not the only party where progressive politicians could be found.

    I leave the ACN to the task of defending and protecting its reputation. Instead, I will take a brief look at the October 20 poll, the question of Southwest politics said to be in need of rejigging, and the various hoaxes that swaddled the poll. I am not persuaded that the ACN has reacted to the unexpected setback it suffered in the poll with the grace and good humour it is capable of. In fact, if its leaders had patiently examined the facts of the election and the import of the results, they would have discovered there was absolutely no reason to be in a foul mood. They would even discover that the claims by both Mimiko and his eager dupes are exaggerated and wishful. However, I really suspect that Mimiko is far too clever to be duped by the fawning of the Afenifere bigwigs. He can read between the lines in his poll victory, and he knows that many of those who rallied behind him were fired up and united by their common and zealous dislike for the ACN as a party, what they say is its presumptuous claims of ideological purity and superiority, and what Bakare in one of his recent sermons described as the offensive aggressiveness and disagreeable imperiousness of the ACN leadership.

    If the ACN crowd closely studied the statistics of the poll, they would come out to congratulate Mimiko and damn him with faint praise. They would have absolutely no reason to be gloomy, let alone churlish. They would forswear court action, with all the wastefulness it entails and all the distractions; for in the end, it may not serve any useful purpose. They would see the election merely as a setback and an opportunity to address many of their party’s weaknesses and contradictory internal dynamics. They would ask themselves probing questions about the wisdom or otherwise of their party’s methods of selecting or electing standard-bearers, and would do a post-mortem of their standard-bearer himself, Rotimi Akeredolu, and the kind of campaign they ran and the issues they addressed on the stump, whether those issues were appropriate or inappropriate. Surely, the party cannot claim not to have learnt anything from the Ondo setback.

    A study of the poll statistics shows quite clearly that the claims of a Mimiko victory triggering change in Ondo politics, not to talk of Southwest politics, is dishonest, far-fetched and simplistic. It is of course well known that Mimiko scored 41.65 percent of the total votes cast in the election, while his two leading opponents in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and ACN collectively scored 47.94 percent. In other words, more people voted for Mimiko’s opponents than voted for him. If this is not statistically important, then it is pointless studying quantitative methods. It also meant that more Ondo people either disagreed with the credentials presented by their governor or disapproved of the way he ran the state.

    If the ACN crowd had been more studious and good-humoured, they would more crucially have recognised that out of a voting population of 1,638,950, only 38.11 percent voted in the governorship poll. This is hugely significant if the aim is to find out what Ondo people really want; whether, for instance, they disapprove of Southwest integration or approve of it. It is anybody’s guess whether the non-voters were entirely absent from the state on the day of the election, were intimidated by the militarisation of the poll, would have voted for either ACN or PDP if their standard-bearers had been different, or were simply not motivated and charmed enough by the candidates on offer or the issues at stake.

    Probably the most damning of the statistical inferences from the Ondo poll is the fact that out of a voting population of about 1.64 million only about 15.88 percent voted for Mimiko. This shocking fact constrains analysts to use the word landslide guardedly and less recklessly than they have done. More importantly, it becomes even more irrational to build on this very modest base of Mimiko supporters to postulate tectonic shifts in Ondo politics, let alone volcanic eruptions in Southwest politics, as Bakare and Odumakin have wishfully conjectured. If the Mimiko supporters and well-wishers are not discomfited by statistics, should they not be sensibly disquieted by the lack of strong credentials of their presumed champion, a man so vacant of the ideals, vision and character that have hallmarked leadership ascendancy in Yorubaland for centuries? Surely, the region cannot have been so impoverished by time and circumstances and even economic hardship that a group of people projecting their private animosities would seize upon a man so barren of endowments, except of wiles and shiftiness, and make him the inner core around whom to rejig the region’s ideology and worldview.

    The ACN must consider itself quite fortunate at this point in time to have contested the Ondo election and suffered the humiliation of coming third behind the winning Labour Party (LP) and the PDP. It won’t be contesting any major election until 2015 when the country will be in an uproar over feverish permutations between ideologies, power blocs and vested and entrenched interests. But it will fight to retain its hold on both Ekiti State (October 2014) and Osun State (November 2014), and enemies will be plenty. The ACN has not found it easy to maintain party discipline in Edo State, but it will have the experience and outcomes of the 2015 general election to guide its behaviour towards the state and its leaders. In view of its tenuous political and ideological hold on some of the states under its control, particularly Edo and Oyo States, the party will be fully challenged to enunciate dynamic, integrated, structural and productive political processes in those two states, and indeed all states under its control, if it is not again to face the kind of apathy and hostile propaganda that humiliated it in Ondo.

    It is likely the ACN may be unnerved by the Ondo setback. It may, for instance, therefore choose to react to the situation by remaining glued to its long-standing political paradigms. It should resist that temptation. The Ondo problem calls for a change of tactics, a change of party structure, a change of general paradigm, especially in terms of how the party views the electorate and the ideas and peculiarities of the individual states in which it seeks to win seats and offices. It should also resist the temptation to doubt its overall vision for the Southwest, particularly integration, which has unfortunately been wrapped in deceptive and hostile propaganda by opposing parties and spiteful individuals. Integration is the way to go, and the party must understand that Ondo people are unlikely to oppose it, as the poll statistics show. Indeed, given the mood of the Southwest, the times call for the intensification of social, political and economic integration in the culturally coterminous states under ACN’s control. The party waited for Ondo State to join its ranks, but hostile and corrupted propaganda insinuating internal colonialism made it impossible. Now is not the time for zeal to flag; now is the time to proceed diligently and enthusiastically.

    After the Ondo debacle, the ACN may believe the Labour Party (LP) had given it a bloody nose, and may begin to fear that the subversive wish of Falae, Bakare, Odumakin and other sundry antagonists concerning the overthrow of the party in the region stands a chance of being fulfilled. Nonsense. That wish can only be realised if the ACN digs itself into a worse labyrinth than it is already in. First, the party must recognise that defeat is nothing but an invitation to re-examine one’s message and methods: it is not a death knell; it is a propellant for change and adaptation. After all, Winston Churchill, with approval rating of 83 percent, incredibly and unprecedentedly lost the general election of 1945 immediately after World War II, which he heroically led Britain to fight. Charles de Gaulle of France was also forced to resign in 1946 in spite of his inimitably heroic actions and leadership of his country during WWII. He was not to become leader again until 12 years later, and was even heard once to despondently remark that the ineffective government that replaced him governed France well in spite of their lack of vision.

    Second, the ACN must also very importantly continue to believe in itself and its progressive credentials and vision. The party’s antagonists argue that you do not need to be in the ACN to embrace integration, and that the region does not have to be ruled by one party to implement integration. These ingenious arguments mask subterranean disdain for regional integration and resentment for ACN leadership. If they cared about integration, they would have realised that Mimiko had all the opportunities in the early part of his governorship to champion the idea, or if a natural laggard, to embrace the idea and wholeheartedly commit himself to its principles. He openly and mockingly did neither. Instead, with the help of other malevolent regional leaders, he concocted the propaganda that regional integration was a ploy at expansionism and domination. Sadly, the propaganda stuck, and a rattled and nervous ACN could find neither the wit nor the logic, nor yet the conviction, to answer that undistinguished regional malfeasance.

    Third, the ACN must understand that it is characteristic of the Southwest to be polarised, often along indistinguishable lines. Apart from the region being overrated in terms of political consciousness, it is also inappropriately described as savvy and futuristic. The Yoruba are an average and quarrelsome people occasionally blessed with visionary and iron-fisted leaders who are often impatient with the disunity and disorientation of the tribe. If they were not average, they would have seen what Awolowo saw in the early 1950s and voted for his party in the 1951 elections. Instead, he had to cobble together a disingenuous political victory reeking of tribalism, an action that continues to haunt his image till today. And as Mr Ayo Opadokun reminded us a few weeks ago in his reminiscences, Awo faced implacable regional foes so strong that they hamstrung regional progress and hobbled his legacy. Those foes were unappeasable in the 1960s, could not be mollified in the 1970s, and it was only in the 1980s, after being tired of opposing the great man to no useful purpose, that they finally sought peace in 1987. But by then it was too late.

    It is one of the paradoxes of history that today, and for reasons that cannot be uttered, supposedly knowledgeable and seemingly progressive Southwest leaders, including members of the Awolowo family, have set themselves in array against the dominant ethos of the region and blunted the region’s effort at achieving national advancement. Afonja was the first notable harbinger of this tendency. It is not certain that the region, in spite of its many talents, can overcome its idiosyncratic love for internal schisms and self-destruction. But if the ACN can patiently study the issues at stake and encourage itself in the region’s future goals, it may be able to rise above the recurring cataclysms that have shaped Yoruba history, subverted their destiny and dissipated the energies and resourcefulness of their children. If the ACN does not rise up to that task; another party will. But that other party will not be led or inspired by Falae, Bakare, current Afenifere leaders, or Odumakin. For if those who genuinely want the region to achieve greatness fail, it is hard to see those ossified in the hateful and divisive politics of the region’s inglorious past succeed.

  • These irritants called ‘Okada’ riders

    These irritants called ‘Okada’ riders

    They should comply with the law or return to the village

    I have strong reservations about certain aspects of the Lagos State Traffic Law, no doubt. But the aspect having to do with the regulation of the activities of ‘Okada’ riders in the state, I wholeheartedly support. As a matter of fact, the regulation should have come a long time ago, considering the nuisance that many of the ‘Okada’ riders have constituted themselves into. Even if I had any doubts before about the necessity for that aspect of the law, those doubts have evaporated with the activities of the ‘Okada’ riders in the past week or so, when enforcement of the law against them began. The ‘Okada’ riders have demonstrated their true colour within the period by vandalising about 42 Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) buses in the state. This is a thing they do daily to private motorists who have issues with them on the roads. Unfortunately, they are almost always wrong, but they insist they are right obviously because many of them do not even know what constitutes right or wrong on the road. Many of them are stark illiterates when the issue has to do with the Highway Code.

    For sure, most of them never rode motorcycle all their lives; they learnt it for a few days in Lagos and soon begin to carry passengers. The results are there for all to see. Anyone who has seen accidents involving ‘Okada’ riders would not even think twice before asking that their activities be banned completely. Anyone who has been to the National Orthopaedic Hospital in Igbobi, Lagos, and seen the wards dedicated to victims of ‘Okada’ accidents would understand what one is talking about. There are many people whose dreams have been shattered simply because they had the misfortune of riding on ‘Okada’. And, instead of banning them outright, the Lagos State Government merely came up with a law that bars them from plying some 475 of the about 9,000 roads in the state. This, to me, is the height of magnanimity. It also shows the sensitivity of the state government to the plight of Lagosians who still, of necessity, must patronise the ‘Okada’ riders. It is also a way of showing consideration for the riders themselves to still be able to do something to keep body and soul together.

    But when last did you see any ‘Okada’ rider obey traffic rule in Lagos? Nine out of 10 of them would ignore traffic lights. They carry more passengers than the motorcycles are designed to carry. When they break car side mirrors or dent other vehicles, they run away; and where they stop, it is for the purpose of fomenting trouble. They not only argue with the owner of the vehicle whose mirror they have broken or whose vehicle they have dented, they exhibit an uncommon esprit de corps, with every ‘Okada’ rider passing the route stopping to side with their colleague, irrespective of whether their colleague is right or wrong.

    Lawlessness apart, quite a number of armed robberies have been committed by ’Okada’ riders or by people on ‘Okada’. Hear the state commissioner of police, Mr. Umar Abubakar Manko: “Motorcyclists have done so much damage in Lagos State. I am the Commissioner of Police and I am telling you from the point of knowledge that most of the armed robberies that we recorded were carried out by these motorcyclists. People go to the banks to collect money, they will hang around banks, they will hang around people’s’ houses, take their belongings, collect their money, even in traffic hold-ups”. So, what are we talking about?

    The annoying thing is that most of the people involved in the’ business’ left their own states for Lagos when their state governments proscribed, outright, the activities of ‘Okada’ for the same reasons that the Lagos State Government has now merely regulated them. They did not vandalise their state government property back home; indeed, they did not even lift any serious finger beyond some feeble protests that soon fizzled out. I know of a governor in the south-south who merely ‘decreed’ ‘Okada’ out of existence in his state with effect from January 1, last year. He did not afford the ‘Okada’ riders the luxury of any long notice that the Lagos State Government gave those in Lagos to turn a new leaf before the coming into existence of the new law; or even the period of grace after the law came into force.

    This matter is particularly infuriating because after their state governments sent them packing, they joined the next available Lagos-bound bus for the sole purpose of coming to ride commercial motorcycle in the state. And, in spite of the fact that they are not doing it right, they want the state government to leave them alone to behave as they like, sending many more people to untimely graves even as they render many others invalid for life. Where in the civilised world is that done? It is difficult to blame them though; they had committed most of these atrocities over the decades unchallenged that they have now come to see them as the norm.

    Of course I am neither deaf nor dumb to the dire economic downturn that has led some of the people into riding commercial motorcycles. But the impression should not be given that the state government owes all Nigerians jobs and that those who cannot find things to do in their own states can just come to Lagos and expect that they must do ‘Okada’ business the way they like. Lagos is not getting any special funding from the Federal Government to warrant that kind of expectation from it. Lagos, like other states of the federation relies on monthly allocation from the Federal Government and internally generated revenue. Many other states have access to the same sources of funds. Unfortunately, there is so much mismanagement and fraud all around, thus making it impossible for them to manage their resources well. If those who are protesting that Lagos is not allowing them to do “Okada’ business on their own terms have gathered themselves to stage similar protests, demanding good governance in their respective states, there would not have been any need for the influx of people to Lagos, overstretching the facilities in the process.

    All these explain why I am shocked about the hoopla on this matter. Lagos State has come up with a traffic law that it feels is in the interest of its citizens; if any ‘Okada’ rider feels the law is too stringent to be obeyed, let him return home to demand that his state government should let him operate ‘Okada’ business unregulated. When the south-south governor in question threw ‘Okada’ riders out of his state, many of them were seen conveying their motorcycles to the nearby state from where majority of them came. Much as the country’s constitution guarantees freedom to live and work anywhere in Nigeria by any Nigerian, it does not take the prerogative of making laws for the good governance of the state from the respective state governments. People who intend to do ‘Okada’ business in Lagos must be ready to abide by the law or return to their respective villages. The state government should not fold its arms and allow its citizens being wasted on the streets simply because some people want to eke a living. The Federal Government and state governments have to provide conducive environment for people to be gainfully employed. Lagos alone cannot bear that burden.

  • The rise and rise of River Nigeria

    (Okon solves a national mystery)

    Will the floods do for Nigeria what human adversities and man-made follies have so far failed to achieve? As biblical floods threaten to overwhelm this bewitchingly beautiful landscape, there are reports of strange rivers and their turbulent tributaries all flowing in one determined direction. River Niger is swollen and pregnant with inabortable possibilities. Could this be the watery endgame as foretold by the Holy Book? So, where is Noah’s Ark? Even the presidential country home is now a mighty pond bristling with toads and tadpoles.

    Amidst the utter confusion and epic helplessness, and as displaced humanity pile up in the remaining earthly redoubts of the nation, there are reports of the sighting of many strange creatures washed up from the watery depths. A clearly disturbed fellow, most probably a failed fisherman but claiming to be a refugee of some repute, suddenly showed up at snooper’s door.

    “And who are you?” snooper demanded.

    “I be dem chairman of dem FEDECOM?” the crazy man shot back.

    “Sir, and what is FEDECOM?” snooper railed in suppressed fury.

    “Na dem Federation of Displaced Compatriots”, the man brayed with an insane smirk on his face. Before snooper could ask another question, the man opened his Pandora Box. “I don catch two snakes, one crocodile, three baby hippos, one mami wata and one shark for River Orubebe”, he screamed. Snooper began to have a sinking feeling. If the crazy fellow were to unleash his arsenal on the house!…

    “And where is River Orubebe?”, snooper asked rather belatedly as a result of the initial shock.

    Na dem former Niger Delta area. Na dem big ship I take reach Lagos from Okpanam. If God wan answer dem prayer make him scissor us from Nigeria no be dis way at all at all. Dis water solution no be solution”, the man moaned in evident distress. At this point, snooper was convinced that he had a mad man as guest.

    “Okon, give him transport money and send him away:, snooper ordered as he firmly shut the door against the crazy man.

    “Which kind useless transport money be dat one? I tell you say wata don kaput kontri and you dey talk transport.” The man screamed. In what seemed like an eternity later, Okon slammed in wearing a comic frown.

    “Oga, I tell am say River Yamutu dey approach and him come pick race”, the crazy boy sneered.

    “Okon!!!” snooper exclaimed.

    “Oga, dis flood thing no be joke oo. Na di tingi dem dey call Wata Warfare. Na Hitler dey hit Nigeria “, Okon sniggered with mad relish.

    “And what is water warfare?” snooper asked fearfully.

    “Ah na dem Cameroon people wan use wata finis dem Nigeria. Dem get dem German engineer for dem Cameroon mountain. You no say dem German still dey dem Cameroon. So each time we dey make useless noise about dem Bakassi, dem German engineer go release dem water and dem rain. He good make we forget about dem Bakassi or dem Cameroon go turn dem kontri to dem obonge river. Dem get naija for blokos”, Okon explained with scientific finality.

    At this point, a fiery killer rain suddenly erupted sending everybody scampering for safety.

  • Before another peril from the Northeast

    There are more reasons for citizens from other parts of Nigeria to be more frustrated than Kirfi and other members of NEFUD

    About two weeks ago, something untoward happened in the Northeast region. Alhaji Bello Kirfi, a retired permanent secretary and now a leading member of the newly formed North East Forum for Unity and Development (NEFUD), called for secession of the North from the rest of Nigeria. He was immediately called to order by General Theo Danjuma who also called for adjournment of the NEFUD meeting. All has been relatively quiet from the North East ever since. But it is a big risk for the rest of Nigeria to sleep with both eyes closed over the call by Kirfi for secession at a meeting of several citizens who had occupied high positions in various spheres of the life of the nation.

    Apart from Balarabe Musa’s quick warning against any call from the North for secession: “I appeal to the masses in the North to ignore the call because it is against their fundamental rights,” members of NEFUD, like the media, have been silent on the demand by Kirfi for secession since the abrupt end of NEFUD’s meeting. And the entire nation appears to have forgotten or overlooked Kirfi’s frustration with the way things are in his region of the country.

    Undoubtedly, the quick erasure of Kirfi’s call from media radar is not without some benefit. It is capable of lessening tension in the country and fright on the part of ordinary citizens who prefer a multiethnic Nigerian federation. But it is important to note that the refusal of Kirfi to apologise for such an outlandish demand may be symptomatic of problems in the polity that only Kirfi is able to apprehend or which he has apprehended on behalf of citizens from the North who are not ready yet to show their faces. It is one thing to view Kirfi as a desperate person who only chooses to use alarmism to draw attention to his frustration with the current state of the country. It is another thing for interpretative reporters or political observers to dismiss this call as an outcome of frustration, without examining the security implications of Kirfi’s call.

    There are more reasons for citizens from other parts of Nigeria to be more frustrated than Kirfi and other members of NEFUD. There is no section of the country that is developed. There is no part of the country that is properly secured. Millions of Nigerians believe that the North East is a source of national instability, underdevelopment, and citizens’ fright. For example, new graduates from different parts of the nation are not safe to complete their NYSC obligations in the North East, the birthplace of Boko Haram and the laboratory for its violence. Religious centres, particularly churches are afraid to open their doors in the North East and in other parts of the country. Citizens in the southern states conduct their life in fear, because of the wanton violence of Boko Haram in various parts of the country.

    Furthermore, the average Nigerian, wherever he or she may be, feels unprotected by the nation’s security forces. Many of them believe that the architecture of the nation’s security is defective and partly responsible for the festering of the Boko Haram menace. Several Nigerians who feel frustrated with overwhelming corruption, and lack of security and development in the country, despite it immense wealth from oil and gas, have chosen not to call for secession as the best response to the raging malaise. They have on the contrary called for a constitutional conference that is to produce a truly federal constitution that will enable regions (including the North East) to manage their affairs in accordance with the dominant values in each region. In the process, such people have asked for fiscal federalism and regional or state autonomy that allow for creation of state or local police to protect citizens from avoidable loss of life and limb to predatory groups like Boko Haram.

    Alhaji Kirfi may have over stated his case or over indulged his feelings about the situation of the country at present. But he is also likely to be unearthing the political unconscious of several Nigerians that believe that the country needs to embark on a journey of change or what President Jonathan once described as Transformation. It is unfortunate that Kirfi has said something that is capable of scaring Nigerians, particularly those that were around during the civil war. But it is dangerous to ignore Kirfi’s call as irrational in the context of the way the country is or has been for decades. When a country appears not to be working, it is not irrational to call for change that can improve the state of affairs. When such calls are ignored or dismissed by those benefiting from the dysfunctional situation, calls such Kirfi’s cannot be ruled out. They just need to be addressed with honesty, even by those who gain from the failure of the state, if only to prevent a worse form of dysfunction that can erode their gains.

    What is irrational is for a country to dismiss calls for positive and negative change with the same amount of enthusiasm. The nation’s leaders including those from Kirfi’s North East region have always been eager to dismiss calls for people’s constitution, true federalism, state police, etc. Their reasoning has always been that anything that attempts to change any aspect of the present dysfunctional architecture of governance in the country is a code name for secession. Such people have always argued that what is most important is the unity of the country, regardless of the effectiveness of the constitution and structure by which the country is governed.

    To ignore Kirfi’s call and dismiss it as a figment of a frustrated man in a similar way that calls for restoration of functional federalism is to ignore aspects of the country’s contemporary history. Boko Haram started as an expression of frustration. It started as a resistance or rejection of western education. It has now grown into a monster that keeps the government jittery and citizens frightened. It is risky to sweep the frustration of Kirfi under the mat. Most Nigerians do not want to wake up one day and find that people who share the feeling of Kirfi about today’s Nigeria are up in arms to bring their desire for secession to fruition, just as Boko Haramists have been doing in the last few years to advance their cause to put all of Nigeria in the envelope of Sharia.

    The media should not ignore Kirfi. He needs to be interviewed, with the aim of identifying his frustration and how best his fears about Nigeria can be removed. The nation needs to find out if Kirfi is re-echoing the popular adage that those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable?

  • Horror it is, passing horror!!

    Truth is, wherever the state cannot impact the individual’s life, the society will sink, barbarism will resurface and death will be casual

    I am sure that when man first began to walk the earth, the good Lord must have looked at him and sighed, ‘This one is trouble!’ Sure enough, as soon as he was able to take in his surroundings, the first thing man did was to invent a weapon of war. Anyone who dared to struggle with him over food or anything else got a head-bash of his new invention, the almighty cudgel. Oh yes, he took a look at the flourishing garden that was earth with its luscious, yet unspoiled soil and declared, ‘food sure is scarce around here, nothing but trees; it’s everyman for himself’, as he swung his cudgel up and down.

    Then, not content with the cudgel, he went a step further; he added spikes to its head, just to fight better even if the fight was not about anything in particular. How really barbaric! That thing has been giving the entire world a headache since that time; no dear friend, not just the cudgel, it’s the going one step further. Now, it has grown many other heads, all called Weapons of Mass Destruction: toxic gases, bombs, guns, poison, liquor, battery, assault, tongue-pulling, etc., and each a source of horror, passing horror!!!

    The problem is that the horror has gained world-wide fame. Practically everyone is using one of them weapons or the other in private and public discourses. The world’s first brothers in the bible had a private conversation, and a cudgel was called in to settle the matter which left one of them dead. When a country now wants to have a private conversation with another, it may use a bomb, just to get their attention. When a husband wants that private conversation, he has been known to pick up a knife or two against his wife, just to make his point; and many a wife has had to call in the poison of the asp, just to emphasise that they also have rights! (It does not matter that many husbands already consider their wives to be asps anyway). Anyway, the original purpose of life appears to have been lost somewhere between making points, getting attentions and claiming rights. Ha!

    The point is that man has brought this weapon thing to a ridiculous level. Now, all over the world, no one can guess right when his neighbour will not get up any fine morning, not to greet, but to make a point with a weapon. ‘I have complained enough about your tree shedding leaves into my compound; from now on, it is war. Take that!’ My teacher does not like me, gbam! My fellow students make fun of me, gbam! My father has not given me enough allowance, gbam! All over the place, people’s passions are passionately unbridled. Seriously, people, is this what life is all about, learning to unbridle our passion?

    Unbridled passion has dispatched many a fine set of people to the great beyond, using them … them … things. Just recently, a group of people was said to have descended on some polytechnic hostels in Mubi and killed forty-six students by shooting them, just like that, and for no reason that logic can explain! Worse, the report says that the group even went with some pre-written names which they called out! So, one by one, each student was called out ‘to come and die’. Imagine that! As if that were not enough, an entire community somewhere in the environs of Port Harcourt so completely unbridled its passion that it consented to and took part in dispatching four people to death in a horrendous fashion, using cudgels and all. This is the one that no one appears to have been able to make any sense of, as it was not only filmed, it was even posted on Youtube! How barbaric can we get, for nowhere in the world are even thieves killed so dispassionately!

    In the better parts of the world, even robbers and murderers have been known to receive greater consideration. Just think, you might get a fully-furnished room, sorry, cell as a prisoner, with free electricity, water and other amenities, free government-sponsored meals (I hear you can even choose from a menu), free training to acquire a skill (such as how to speak better), a job if you are very good (and no one dares tax your returns), a battery of lawyers or activists to defend your right to life should you be condemned to death … It is, in short, the good life for many and almost makes you want to go be a prisoner there. It sure beats life in many Nigerian cities, and it certainly beats life in many Nigerian prisons.

    But these were said not to be thieves, they were said not to be anything but students. So, how they came about such a horrendous fate beggars all belief and makes nonsense of our nationhood. When we have citizens settling small squabbles (such as a students’ election in one case and a financial debt in the other!) with the death sentence in any form, the senses must reel and the sensibilities must swoon. Here indeed is the nadir of this country’s moral turpitude.

    We must, however, look beyond these incidents to hone home some points. The first thing to note is that Nigerians are getting too dangerously desensitised to death and the things of death. Come, how many stories of death through sickness, rituals, murders, accidents, domestic violence, religious violence, playful punching, etc., does an average person hear in a day? Someone was said to have been annoyed by another person who persisted in heckling him. So he gave the heckler a punch, just to shut him up; but instead of shutting up, the fellow just slumped and died. There appears to be little state intervention in many of the deadly and death-causing things flying around here.

    Then, there is the fact that Nigerian leaders do not show any value for Nigerian lives. This is true. Listen; are there not many stories of Nigerian governments failing to take action to rescue their own citizens from other countries while others have long since brought their own citizens home? Then, there are just too many cases of extra-judicial killings, police stray bullets, assassinations, ritual murders, etc. A country that cannot even resolve the killing of its own justice minister is bound to have problems. People will lose faith, lose fear and resort to self-help.

    Worse still, Nigerians have long since tired of the cheating and brutalisation coming from government officials who should be looking after their interests at the local, state and national levels. They know that LG officials only go to work to share money, state officials have no interest in assisting the people and national ministries’ officials are also only interested in their own lot rather. None of them is interested in fashioning out any impactful national policy.

    So, when there appears not to be any government intervention in their lives, people soon become hopeless and will find an outlet where they can: cynicism and self-help. After all, there is no greater help than self-help. The only problem is that self-help has no ability to draw its lines within the bounds of reason and sanity. Nigerians help themselves in matters of electricity, roads, water, and justice, never mind who is hurt or not hurt. Yes, thank you for asking, I still breathe in fumes from my neighbours’ generator sets while I’m sleeping. Truth is, wherever the state cannot impact the individual’s life, the society will sink, barbarism will resurface and death will be casual. Nigeria has thus had the singular honour of moving from barbarism to barbarism without the usual interval of civilisation. We need to bring it back from the brink and regain the purpose of life.

  • Back to the future

    Back to the future

    As we await the outcome of the historic Ondo state gubernatorial polls, it is clear that there is turbulence in the House of Oduduwa. Once again, the Yoruba political elite have arrived at one of those critical conjunctures of history. The unprecedented militarisation of Ondo state by the federal authorities in the wake of the election, the high decibel scaremongering, the level of elite rancour and mutual loathing, the arrows of hatred being shot in all directions, point at a fundamental fracturing of consensus.

    When the din of political commotion has receded, when tempers have cooled, when frayed nerves have calmed considerably, we will have to resume the dialogue, if not for our own sake but for the sake of our children, for the sake of posterity and for the sake of a nation in total shambles. All the major post-independence and post-colonial crises of the Nigerian state and nation have always emanated from the old west. Once again, the omens are dark and dire.

    The complete militarisation of Ondo state on the eve of its fourth gubernatorial election after the advent of military rule does not bode well for the development of democracy or the deepening of civil rule. It speaks to the continuing inability of the political elite to internalise the elementary norms of democratic rule. The post-military consolidation of civil rule is facing its most severe test. Soldiers are already out in full force maintaining civil order in several parts of the nation. Gradually, a significant section of the old north is coming under informal military rule. Slowly but inexorably, the entire country is being placed on a war footing.

    In the old west, a bitter confrontation and rearguard rallying is unfolding between the new dominant tendency of the Yoruba and the old hegemonic forces in alliance with disaffected fractions of the Yoruba intelligentsia and the inevitable mainstream mensahib. A regular feature of Yoruba political infighting is for the emaciated and emasculated faction to hide under federal might to cause mayhem in their own fatherland. Given recent disturbing signals, will the old Afenifere grandees go in the same direction, destroying all they have fought for in the twilight of their career?

    We speak with caution and circumspection. Exactly five years ago, the cream of the Yoruba political and economic elite together with their intelligentsia gathered in Ibadan for a historic reapproachment. In a famous riposte at the gathering, Chief Olu Falae noted that fighting ends when fighting itself is tired and exhausted. (O tire ija) But it is obvious that given Chief Falae’s recent vitriolic and volcanic outbursts that fighting is far from exhausted. On the contrary, it is bearish and bullish. What went wrong between October 2007 and October 2012?

    When a child falters and falls, it looks instinctively at what lies in front. But when elders stumble and fall, they cast a glance backwards. This morning snooper takes a retrospective look at the immediate past as a prelude to confronting the future. We republish the report of the Ibadan deliberations which took place exactly five years ago this week.

  • Ondo formula is simply not reusable

    Ondo formula is simply not reusable

    To police some 1.5 million expected voters in yesterday’s governorship poll, half of whom may not even vote, the federal government sent in four police commissioners, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman himself, an estimated 8,000 soldiers according to a newspaper estimate, about 11,000 policemen, and a battery of sundry officials, a horde of election observers, and a gaggle of journalists from newspapers nearly all of which are disposed to Governor Olusegun Mimiko, one of the candidates in the election. This certainly cannot be a dress rehearsal for the 2015 polls, for the security agencies would be stretched wafer thin as to be in danger of snapping.

    There is no doubt that the October 20 Ondo poll is hugely significant in and to the Southwest. But to deploy an armada, as it were, to police a relatively small voting population appears to me to be excessive. Not only that, it even suggests to me that we seem to think whenever we are confronted by difficult situations, the magic formula is to overwhelm the problem with all the force the nation can muster. Our governments are not intellectually inclined, have no finesse, and are blissfully unaware of the image and messages they send out to the rest of the world silently but carefully watching our every nuance. Do we think there is no better way of policing votes or ensuring the integrity of elections conducted here? I think there are. The problem is that we have not engaged those novel methods because the government at the centre has not shown the altruism, dignity and detachment required to instil discipline in a combustible polity.

    In the last general elections, what did the government do to punish those who undermined the balloting process in some affected states? Nothing. In a few states in the South-South, voter turnout was too fantastic to be true, in some cases recording nearly twice the national average. What did the federal government do to restore confidence in the face of such brazen thievery? The government implausibly and incredibly argued that since the exaggerated figures merely emphasised the voting pattern, not contradict it, it was needless complaining or doing something about it. The cancer was therefore left unattended. In fact, in the history of elections in Nigeria, the voter turnout in the riverine states has always been excessively unrealistic. If the president had sensibly cancelled those elections and ordered a rerun, he would have sent the message that whether it favoured him or not the integrity of polls must at all times be upheld, and he would be ready even at his own peril to stake his presidency to secure the sanctity of the elections.

    Until we have a president willing to lose an election or to stake his presidency on ensuring electoral integrity, we may never have a poll where the candidates would not be desperate to undermine the balloting process. The use of overwhelming force was first successfully applied in the Edo governorship election, and was again applied in yesterday’s Ondo poll. It will be used in subsequent isolated polls. But it cannot be applied in the 2015 general elections because the country does not have the resources to deploy as much logistics and as many men as it did yesterday. Indeed, such deployments indicate there is still something terribly wrong with the country, which if not tackled urgently may finally consume all of us. But every time I make such an argument, I feel more and more like Cassandra.

     

  • Welcoming our dear Patience Jonathan

    Welcoming our dear Patience Jonathan

    I was angry when Dame Patience Jonathan left the country’s shores unceremoniously late August. I was still angry when she returned on Wednesday. Indeed, I was angrier when the media made her return an issue. Why must you roll the carpets out to welcome someone who did not bid you goodbye when she was travelling? Even if she was not capable of doing that, should her aides too not have explained at least a little of what the issue was as she was leaving the country, or even after she had left? To make matters worse, one of them had to remind us that madam is not his ‘mate’, when we asked him for an idea of when to expect the First Lady. “Is she my mate”, that I should ask her that kind of question? he asked angrily. Anyway, my Christian conscience would not allow me grudge her for too long. So, welcome back, ma’am.

    But I won’t allow what I noticed when she returned to go just like that. For a man whose wife had been away for about seven weeks, one would have thought that President Goodluck Jonathan would be more romantic when receiving his wife on her return. But, what did we see on Wednesday? A President Jonathan who appeared too shy to properly hug his Dame in the open, when she returned after the weeks of ‘resting’ abroad. He must have disappointed those of us who were waiting for the award-winning picture of the President hugging his wife on the tarmac, and squeezing her tight, Lagos-style, her two feet off the ground in the process. I trust President Barack Obama, if he had such an opportunity in the open, he would convert it to political advantage so that weeks after the great ‘event’, it would still be the focus of the media worldwide.

    President Jonathan would be lucky if the women’s rights groups would not conspire with others at large, to wit: sue him for this run-on-the-mill welcome peck. And when the President should have been making plan to make up for this casual welcome back home hug, he left the country for Niamey, the Niger Republic capital on official assignment. Pray, what business has he in Niamey at a time Patience’s lips must be saying something like ’near-me’?

    Anyway, President Jonathan has a rare third chance: having returned from Niamey, he should declare a week-long national holiday to do the needful; Nigerians would understand. Then, in their inner recesses in Aso Rock, they should put a sticker on the door with the stern warning: “First Couple at work” (or is it at play?) with some of the best hits of Donna Summer, Sonya Spence and (cap it with that of) Marvin Gaye, at the background. It is dangerous to let Patience run out of patience.